My 60 + 10th Birthday

20th April 2013 was my 60 + 10th birthday – I’ve decided to adopt the Babylonian number system for birthdays. I was both flabbergasted and gobsmacked (or, in more elegant British, “really rather surprised”) when Cristina and Roberto lured me down to the dark basement of the Don Manuel hotel on the pretext of looking at some bygone posters and… the big room erupted with lights and balloons and so many friends and even inexplicably my daughter Jess and partner Kris who had sneaked into Asturias the day before – and lots of booze and presents (many of which were excellent booze ☺) and a groaning board of food and a whole ham and incredible decorations which had taken people the previous 3 days to create and a wondrous Cthulhu cake (by the way, Cristina made the smaller red cake just to fool me) and…

and, soon, a video projected on the wall of absent friends saying nice things. I’d been completely unaware of all the secret preparations going on for months, co-ordinated by my beloved Cristina often while I was at my own computer and Cristina at hers in the very same room, so I must definitely improve my espionage tradecraft! Just that morning I´d insisted on popping out of the house to buy something and wondered why Roberto accompanying me seemed at once preoccupied while at the same time babbling at me to occupy my attention; it transpired that I´d strayed within a couple of hundred metres of Jess and Kris having a coffee in Parchis square, but then fortunately I suddenly turned in a different direction.

Indeed I was so fooled that when I first entered the dimmed birthday room I thought some photography event was going on and backed out momentarily. What a wonderful party it was! Thanks so much, everybody involved!